La photographie avec les arts

During the XIXth century the relations between photography and the arts were not simple. It was seen as an disloyal competitor to service laziness, or else as a wonderful instrument for documentation, as Eugène Disdéri said. As it opened its library in 1864, the Ecole nationale des Beaux-Arts saw this young media enter with panache. It allowed for portfolios of Roman monuments to be made, as well as of ornaments and genre scenes; it immortalised the works of awarded students. Sixty thousand snapshots, often glued on the back of cardboard, soon started to pile up on the shelves: Notre-Dame during its restoration (without the spier), the destruction of the war in 1870, the head of the Statue of Liberty at the Universal exposition in 1878, the Parisian facades as taken by Atget, the ruins in Syria and Lebanon or the happy-go-lucky life celebrations at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. This photography heritage had been forgotten until it was rediscovered in the 70s, a century after its birth. This large book presents a selection organised according to the theme, and includes through the pages some contemporary creations.

• La photographie avec les arts, by Anne-Marie Garcia, Beaux-Arts de Paris, 2015, 400 p., €39.